Who’s more important: The kids or the spouse?

This is one question that has puzzled many people and caused some very interesting debates.

Marriage is the oldest sacrament in the world where a man and woman are joined together by law, tradition and/or religion to become husband and wife. Different people go into this union for different reasons. For some, time is running out and they need to settle down with the first available marriage-ready person. It is a comfort zone to get over disappointments and undue pressure from family and friends. While others  marry for the sake of companionship through to old age.

A major reason for which most people marry is in order to procreate and have a lineage. Children are seen to be the sustaining power for many marriages. They are also the basis for continued relations between estranged parents.  Talking about a marriage which should ideally be the environment that brings forth a child, it is not uncommon to hear a parent make statements like  “but for the children, I would have walked out of this marriage”  or, “but for the fact that there is a child between us, there would have been no need to continue in this relationship.”

The question, which has pondered many hearts, is: since children play such significant roles in marriages, should they therefore be the primary focus or the most important elements of the relationship? What happens in cases where the unions have no children? What about older couples whose children are grown ups?

“Theologically,” said Reverend Fr. Patrick Alumuku, a Priest at the Holy Rosary Catholic Church, Abuja, “the basic reason for a marriage is not the company or the union between husband and wife, it is for procreation. God created man and woman and asked them to go out and multiply.

“Not every marriage brings children. For some reason, some women are unable to conceive to have kids. In Africa particularly, that becomes an issue, and more often than not, she takes the blame whether it is her fault or not. More recently, you have young men who insist that the woman must be pregnant before any marriage can take place. Some men discover they cannot have children and send their wives out to get the children.

“Children are important in a union, but the relationship which produced that child or children is also important. It should be such a loving and caring one, so that even without children, the couple should be able to live happily and joyfully together. If the rapport between couples is sour, they will not be able to sustain the children,” he said.

Anslem Ikpe insists that his children are more important. “My wife is important, but the children are more important. When my marriage was in crisis, they were my consolation and the reason I didn’t file for divorce. I owe the success of my marriage to them, because they continuously spoke to and encouraged me. If the marriage didn’t have children, it would have been history already.

“Looking at African homes, it is clear that the father is first, then the children before the mother in terms of importance. So, automatically, the child is the most important. As a wife, the children come first and then the husband. When they are grown and out of the house, the husband becomes priority in a case where you have a good rapport. Otherwise, you invest your energy in other things,” Ikpe said.

The ideal situation is for the man and woman to enhance their marriage and enjoy it as they raise their kids, not put it on hold for the sake of the children and resume when they find themselves home alone. Without knowing it, they would have built a wide gap between each other that they would not have realized because everything then revolved around their kids.

David Code Pastoral Counselor and author of Should Parents Put Their Marriage Before Their Kids?,sums it up. “Child-centred families create anxious, exhausted parents and demanding, entitled kids who act out. In my pastoral counselling as an Episcopal Minister, I see many troubled children from families in which the parents believe their marriage is strong because they seldom argue.

“But in reality, their relations are characterised by distance: the husband may work long hours or perhaps he goes out with friends three or four nights a week. It’s almost as if he’s checked out of the marriage. The wife often fills this void by focusing her emotional energy on her children, typically on one child in particular. Mum and this child may become best friends or else Mum constantly worries about the child. Either way, it is trouble,” he said.